California Democrats, GOP issue ballot measure endorsements. Where they agree, disagree

Andrew Sheeler
·3 min read

Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!

FIRST UP — Please take a minute to fill out our newsletter reader survey. Thank you so much!

CADEMS, CAGOP OFFER ENDORSEMENTS, ANTI-ENDORSEMENTS FOR BALLOT MEASURES

Both the California Republican Party and the California Democratic Party decided this weekend on endorsements for the issues set to go before voters this November.

Perhaps feeling a bit of bipartisan spirit, both parties opted to endorse measures that would require high schoolers to take a financial literacy course and to provide permanent funding for Medi-Cal services.

But that’s about where the bipartisanship ended.

The Democratic Party endorsed measures to allow municipalities to enact taxes to further the construction of affordable housing, raise the minimum wage to $18 an hour, and allow local governments to enact rent control policies.

Republicans voted to oppose each of those measures.

Democrats voted to support an amendment to remove anti-same-sex-marriage language from the California Constitution. Republicans were neutral on that measure, perhaps in a bid to avoid alienating the LGBTQ community and its allies.

Republicans also endorsed a measure to repeal Proposition 47, the 2014 voter-approved initiative that re-classified a number of drug- and theft-related offenses from felonies to misdemeanors. Democrats opposed the effort to repeal.

Want the full list of endorsements?

You can find the CADEM endorsements here.

You can find the CAGOP endorsements here.

CALIFORNIA FISH ARE DYING. WHY?

Via Ari Plachta...

Just east of the San Francisco Bay, California’s giant water delivery system on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta has received scrutiny for a spike in native fish deaths.

Coming at a time when threatened and endangered fish populations are facing steep declines, the numbers drew ire from environmentalists. Farmers aren’t happy either, as the delta pumps deliver less water despite a second year of drought-busting storms.

In this rare year of average rainfall, renewed attention on the system illuminates one of many perennial tensions of California water: The more that’s pumped out of the delta, the harder the hit to beleaguered salmon and steelhead.

A Sacramento Bee analysis of data from the Department of Fish and Wildlife shows that since 2002, state and federal water pumping from the delta killed an estimated 600,000 chinook salmon and 50,000 steelhead trout.

This year has been historically bad.

During February and March, pumps killed an estimated 3,600 winter-run chinook, the highest number killed in any two-month period in 20 years. About 3,200 steelhead died in February and March, the highest number since 2007.

State leaders acknowledge this is a problem. To read more about what they’re doing to solve it, look out for our story this Sunday, May 26.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The ICC announcement today is not only misguided and repugnant, it is also a terrible overreach of the body’s authority. To make a false equivalence between the actions of a democratically-elected government and those of Hamas — a brutal terrorist organization — is absurd.”

- Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, responding in a statement regarding news that an International Criminal Court war crimes prosecutor will seek arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders for their actions during the Israel-Hamas war.

Best of The Bee: